Radiopharmaceuticals are used in a wide range of medical applications. For example, radiopharmaceuticals may be used to generate medical images in a number of imaging modalities, such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT). PET and SPECT are classified as “nuclear medicine” because they are often used in conjunction with a radioactive tracer that is injected into a patient and that facilitates image acquisition. After the radioactive tracer, or radiopharmaceutical, is injected, it is absorbed by the blood or a particular organ of interest. The patient is then moved into the PET or SPECT detector that measures the emission of the radiopharmaceutical and creates an image based on the characteristics of the detected emission. In addition, radiopharmaceuticals may be used to treat patients. Examples of radiopharmaceuticals include FDG (2-[18F]-fluoro-2-deoxyglucose), other 18F based fluorinated tracers, 13N ammonia, 11C based tracers, 15O gas, and 15O water, and others.
The half lives of many of these radiopharmaceuticals range from two minutes to two hours. Thus, the injection into the patient and any subsequent imaging generally take place within a very short time period after production of the radiopharmaceutical. Accordingly, these radiopharmaceuticals are often synthesized at on-site facilities or in local production facilities within suitable driving distance of the patient care site to prevent undue decay of the radiopharmaceutical prior to use. Accordingly, because of the distributed nature of radiopharmaceutical production, it is desirable to provide small-batch synthesis techniques that yield consistent results and suitable safety profiles when operated by technicians spread out over a number of facilities.